After Yesterday
by Matt Morwell
Summary: Based on the video game Second Sight. A man with no memory and frightening powers awakens as a captive in an isolation cell, and begins a bloody journey through past and present to figure out what got him there.
1. Prologue

_**After Yesterday  
**__by Matt Morwell_

_Disclaimer: The characters and materials used herein are based on the video game "Second Sight", developed by FreeRadical. They are used arbitrarily and without permission. So there._

_**

* * *

Prologue**_

_Pain._

_So much pain... unbearable, blinding... like Hell born into reality._

_Pain in his eye... across his chest... spiking in his legs and abdomen._

_Pain that would cause him to cry out in agony – except he could not part his lips to scream, nor could he incite his vocal cords to create any form of audible noise. All he could do was breathe irregularly._

_Even that was a challenge. And whatever remained of his sanity screamed at him that it was an exercise in futility anyway... but he didn't know why._

_He inched his head to the side, the most effort he had ever put into motion since... since..._

_Since..._

—

**Osiris Medical Research Facility  
****Calton, Virginia, United States  
****October 5, 1999  
****6:42 a.m.**

Franklin Stubbs tried not to yawn as he pushed the cart out of the elevator and down the central corridor. He had pulled an all-nighter the previous night – half the night had been spent at the facility, the other half of it at a bar in town where he'd tried to get in some hot young blonde stranger's pants.

Hadn't worked. In fact, he'd gotten a slap across the face for it... but looking back on it, some part of him knew he'd deserved it. He'd gotten drunk, and he had a tendency to get pretty brazen when inebriated. That's why his first marriage had fallen apart. Second one, too.

_What's AA's definition of insanity? "Performing the same action repeatedly in expectation of a different result each time."_ He wasn't one to admit his fallacies to others, but he felt no shame in admitting them to himself. He wasn't a perfect man... actually, he was quite the specimen of imperfection. He had a minor criminal record and a reputation for excessive force, the latter of which had gotten him kicked out of the NYPD.

So it had been to his great surprise – and pleasure – to discover this facility wanted him to work for them. The manager had said it was precisely because of his excessive force rap... they needed muscle, and he had it in abundance. They needed, in the manager's words, "a brute", and in Stubbs they had found their man.

_Weird. But still, it's a job._ Stubbs was certain the word "brute" was by no means a compliment to him, but at this stage in his life, he was willing to take whatever breaks Fate wanted to allow. Pay was decent, and there was very little action to be had here. A few patients here and there had to be held down, but the restraints on the gurneys tended to take care of at least half that job anyway. He'd never had to use his nightstick – though there were days he was sorely tempted to give Connelly a whack over the head or two, just right across that balding scalp of his. _That man has, bar none, the weirdest combover I've ever seen in my life._

And being from Brooklyn, Stubbs had seen quite a few of those.

He arrived at the entrance to Surgery Observation and hit the buzzer. On the other side of the door's window, a round, mustachioed face smirked mischievously at Stubbs, and rising up in front of it was a fist the size of a ham with its middle finger raised.

"Lemme in, you chubby bastard," Stubbs muttered. He hit the buzzer three more times, hoping Dr. Henricksen could hear it and get irritated with Connelly for keeping him waiting. To emphasize his point, he spoke louder. "C'mon, Harry, buzz me through already!"

Harold Connelly finally relented and opened the door for his co-worker, with whom he liked to think he had a relationship that bordered on rivalry. They were both competing for the next raise on the grunt level – they had been for some time, hence their cooperative move to the 6th floor of the facility, which had only netted them the same exact amount of monetary increase to their respective salaries.

He ran a hand over the thick patch of hair sitting atop his otherwise bald scalp, which he had dutifully combed to cover as much of that scalp as humanly possible. "Whatcha got here today?"

"It's your Christmas roast come early," Stubbs replied, not interested in trading verbal barbs with Connelly today. "Move outta the way, I got a job to do."

Connelly leaned down to inspect the subject on the gurney, and his eyes widened in appreciation. "Jesus. Is this guy a mess, or what?"

Stubbs pushed the gurney past Connelly and shrugged. "Ahh, that's nothin'. You shoulda seen him before." Stubbs had... it hadn't been a sight any prettier than what was left for them to view now.

Connelly fell into step alongside. "Guess he won't be dating again."

Stubbs scoffed. "Yeah, right, like he's ever getting out. Why do you think he's here?"

"Why do _you_ think he's here?" Connelly countered.

"I don't have to think about it, I know. He's a psycho killer."

Connelly blinked, impressed. "Sweet! What'd he do?"

Stubbs was all for blood and gore – his favorite kind of movie was a good zombie flick – but he found Connelly's attitude towards real-life murderers a little sickening. He turned his attention to maneuvering the gurney past the chemical stores. "That's classified."

This time it was Connelly's turn to scoff. "Yeah, right. That's Latin for 'I got no fucking clue'."

"Whatever."

Connelly rolled his eyes as he opened the door into the operating room. "Why do they even keep these losers alive?"

"Do you ever get tired of asking that question? I've been hearin' it for the past five months, and always, the answer's been the same – the lab wants him."

"What the hell're they gonna make out of him? A crash test dummy?"

Stubbs shrugged. "Who knows? He's been wired up to a box all summer. Maybe he's curin' cancer."

Connelly's eyes narrowed at the subject on the gurney, and then they widened. "Hey, hey, did you see that?" He pointed. "He moved his head... he's lookin' right at me."

Stubbs glanced down at the patient, and indeed, Connelly seemed to be correct – his right eye was half-open and lazily drifting about his surroundings, and Connelly in particular. "Yeah... so?"

"Well, I mean... you think he can hear us?"

Stubbs chuckled. "Leave it to you to be all happy when in the presence of a killer, then scared shitless when he wakes up. He can hear all he wants, won't make a difference." He looked up and into the operating room, where Henricksen was finally taking notice of the room's new occupants. "Hey, Doc! How about a little more monkey juice over here, huh?"

"I was not scared shitless..." Connelly babbled on some lame excuse of a defense, but Stubbs wasn't really paying attention to him anymore – rather, he was watching Henricksen's apparent fascination with the newest research subject.

"Ahh, yes..." Henricksen murmured. "Be careful with this one. Let me see..." He reached down and grabbed the patient's bloated chin between thumb and forefinger in a vicegrip that Stubbs was almost positive would have had a grown man squirming in pain.

Except this guy couldn't do that. Couldn't do much of anything, really.

After having seen a little bit of his history, Stubbs preferred it that way.

Henricksen looked up at Stubbs over his surgical mask. "Hold his arm a moment, would you?"

"Glad to, Doc." Stubbs reached out and held down the patient's left arm at the elbow. He met no resistance, though he was certain that if the patient were fully aware, he'd probably have had a bit of a fight on his hands.

_One worth remembering. I barely do shit around here. Same with Harry..._ He looked over at Connelly, who still seemed intent on convincing his co-worker that he wasn't afraid of some carved up meatbag strapped to a shopping cart. Which, of course, could only mean Connelly was simply trying to make up for his outburst earlier.

_Well, I'd love to claim I'm as ballsy as Harry says he is, but there's something about all this..._

It wasn't just the patient that was bothering Stubbs. It was everything around him – until he'd come to this facility, he'd never seen an operating room that seemed comparatively so shabby, nor had he ever seen a doctor willing to wear a medical gown with bloodstains on it after a surgery performed in it was finished.

"Uh, Doc? You need any new equipment? Medical gowns, clean needles, that kind of thing?" Stubbs asked, trying to sound casual.

Henricksen waved Stubbs' request off with a flick of his hand. "Not necessary, but thank you. If you gentlemen will please excuse us..." He looked down at his new test subject with a glint in his eye.

Stubbs knew that look. And he knew to be well away from anyone with it if he wanted to retain his sanity.

"...we have some work to do."


	2. Isolation

_**After Yesterday**_

_**Isolation**_

—

**Osiris Medical Research Facility  
****Calton, Virginia, United States  
****October 6, 1999  
****12:05 p.m.**

In the void of darkness behind his eyelids, his vision swam. And almost made him pass out. This in and of itself caused him no small amount of despair, as he'd worked so very hard to retrieve the last vestiges of his strength from the abyss, gathered them all together to force himself back into an at least semi-conscious state.

His head was throbbing as if his brain had been replaced by his heart. He could hear his pulse roaring in his ears. He was sore all over, and the moment his body realized the temperature in... wherever it was... goosebumps rose all over his exposed skin. He quickly discovered there was no shortage of that; he was nearly nude from the waist up. A slight shifting of both ankles revealed to him that a pair of medical slippers were all that protected him from the chill of this place, and a pair of what he assumed were some sort of pants provided similar (lack of) protection.

Though he could still feel his eyes rolling in every possible direction within his skull, he nevertheless did his best to force them open. His right eye blinked its way open; his left was not nearly so cooperative. The entire left side of his face felt numb, and although he could feel some air slipping between his cracked left eyelid, he could see nothing through that crack.

When he tried to reach up to his eye to find out what was wrong with it, he discovered – much to his dismay – that both wrists had been quite firmly shackled to the bed on which he lay. The first thing that escaped his mouth was a groan, hoarse and rough, as though he hadn't used his voice in a very long time. As a result, the next thing that escaped his mouth was a grinding cough.

Belatedly, he realized he could now see his surroundings. The ceiling was white patchboard and shone brilliantly down upon him... or rather, reflected brilliantly the sunlight that shone through the array of windows to the right of his bed. The walls behind his head and past his feet were painted the sort of pale green one expected to see in a medical facility; to his left was another wall made entirely of some form of see-through material, which some part of his foggy mind suspected was stronger than glass. His functioning eye spotted some sort of pale fuzziness on one of the window panes... it looked like a human hand print.

_No... two hand prints... I guess whoever put those there didn't come here willfully..._

_Maybe it was me..._

_Maybe I didn't come here willfully..._

More awareness was seeping into him now, and he began testing the strength of the restraints about his wrists. But his strength was still limited, and whatever the breaking point of the restraints might be, it became increasingly clear to him there was no way he would be able to exceed it, and especially not in his current condition.

He slumped back, sighed, and closed his eyes. However illogical it might have been of him, he could see it happening in his mind's eye nevertheless – the straps somehow bending to his will, releasing him from their confinement and allowing him to at least try to rise from the bed–

A tingling tickled the inside of his skull. He tried to ignore it by focusing more on his fantasy, but the more he thought of freedom, the more persistent the tingling became, until it became not a tingle but a pulsing whine of agony through his brain – a million nails scraping across some gargantuan blackboard that made him want to clamp his hands over his ears and never let go–

His palms flew up to his ears.

And his eyes opened in shock. _What...?_

A quick glance to the right side of his head confirmed he wasn't dreaming – at least, not so far as he knew. His arm was hovering beside his head, with his right hand quite firmly pressed against his right ear.

The whine faded back to a faint tingle.

Several moments passed before he was finally able to release his cranium from his own death grip, but when he did, he placed his hands on the bed a safe distance away from the restraints, which now hung, quite uselessly, from the bedside rails. Some part of him feared they might suddenly rise up of their own volition and snatch his wrists back in their grasp.

He put forth a huge effort to prop himself up on the bed, felt himself grow dizzy again, stopped to steady himself. He clenched his eyes shut and tried to get used to the sudden change in equilibrium; another groan escaped him as he slowly pushed himself off the bed and to his feet. Part of him ridiculed the rest of him for putting his body through such rigors while in this condition; there was no telling how long he would be able to keep his footing before falling flat on his face.

_And probably getting caught in the process..._

Searing, white-hot pain flashed through his right side; his corresponding hand flew up to coddle whatever injury was present there, and his fingertips encountered an alarming amount of tender scar tissue. He winced and looked down at himself – and promptly found a perfect excuse to pass out. Bandages covered a goodly portion of his torso, including a wraparound that seemed to be failing at hiding a conglomeration of scarring and scabs. Blood had seeped into a great deal of it; it would need to be changed soon.

_How... how did I get like this?_

_Why can't I remember?_

Panic washed over him – this wasn't the only thing he couldn't remember. He couldn't remember how he got here, much less where "here" was... and...

_I can't even remember who I am!_

The words fell from his cracked lips aloud. "Why... why can't I remember anything?"

His vision cleared enough for him to spot the door amidst the transparent walling to the left, and he stumbled over to it. It would not give way to a shove, and he knew that pounding it was more likely to hurt him than the material of which it was made.

_I've got to get this door open..._

His eye spotted the problem – an electronic mechanism mounted on the wall frame, right next to the door. _I guess that opens it... if I could just get to it somehow..._ But a glance was all he needed to know the door was airtight, and even if it wasn't, there was no mechanism in the room that would allow him to pass it. There were no edges to the bed; everything on it was quite expertly rounded off, most likely to ensure patients didn't injure themselves upon it.

_Well... I guess there might be an alternate route..._

He staggered over to the bank of windows behind him, and realized that this was really not an alternative at all. _Whoa... I'm a long way up. What... and where... is this place?_

He placed his left hand against the window to steady himself, then pressed his forehead against the glass and sighed. _I don't understand what's going on at all! And what happened to those straps holding me to the bed?_

Some small voice in the back of his mind chirped at him to walk back through what he could recall. _I woke up... I noticed them... I imagined them undoing..._

His voice creaked as he wondered the impossible to himself. "Did I undo them with my...?"

But his reasoning shouted that down all too quickly. _This is insane! 'Course I didn't do it!_

_... But what if...?_

If he'd felt well enough to shake his head, he would have – as it was, that rather vital extremity was still throbbing painfully. _Here, I'll prove it to myself. I'll try and do the same thing with that switch._

_But how?_

He considered the matter. _The more I thought about the straps opening, the more it hurt... but then they came undone. Maybe I should try and focus my attention on it the same way?_

_But it'll hurt again._

_It hurts anyway. Besides, if I don't try, I'll definitely stay here, and I'll get hurt even more, probably. What have I got to lose?_

His right eye squinted at the locking device, and he extended his left hand towards it in a decisive demonstration that he was attempting to prove this ridiculous theory. Even as he began focusing his attention on the lock, yet another mental voice laughed at him in ridicule – _how terribly cliché!_

_Well, how do I know that? I can't remember anything._

Then his mental arguing was drowned out by the tingling sensation. At first, he shifted his attention away and the tingle vanished completely – that alone frightened him into re-focusing his attention on the lock much more fiercely.

The terrible screeching sound returned to assault his every sense, and he groaned in testimony to the overwhelming sensation... if he could make more noise than that, he probably would, but there wasn't even so much as a drop of water here to soothe his crackling throat...

_No! Don't think about that! Just try to open the lock, dammit!_

_**Bee-deet-clik-tssssssh.**_

He blinked. Blinked again.

The door was wide open.

"Whoa," he murmured aloud, and he tentatively touched the open doorframe. "How the...?"

_Either I'm going crazy... or I actually pressed that switch from here._

A slightly insane chuckle escaped him – it was entirely possible the former was the case. After all, there seemed to be nobody in the adjacent room observing him... and why would there be no one in a room clearly meant for the purpose of observation?

_Still... _He stepped through the door and glanced about. He felt his lower face break into a smile, painful though it was. _I'm free. That'll show them – nobody messes with... with..._

_Dammit! What's my name?!_

_Shouldn't worry about that right now, so much as getting out of here. There must be a reason I'm here in the first place..._ His vision turned fuzzy again, and he nearly lost his footing; his recovery was awkward and he staggered against the transparent wall for support. Once his vision cleared, he looked across the room and saw a door leading out to the left.

_One door's as good as another._ He headed for it, still in a fog and head still tingling from the last exertion of his... whatever it was.

Passing through the door, he could feel his heart jump at the possibility of people beyond it waiting for him – but there was nobody. What there was, however, was a myriad of empty gurneys and a vast array of advanced-looking devices linked to each one.

_Strange... lots of medical equipment, but no patients._ He noticed another bank of windows on the far left wall, and approached it – its results were much the same as those of the isolation cell from which he'd just freed himself. _Probably throwing myself out the window isn't the best way out of here._

He looked back up at the various equipment the room had to offer, and considered. _I wonder... if I managed to release the straps and unlock the isolation cell with my mind... what else can I do?_ His thoughts became at once anxious and excited. _Perhaps I should try concentrating on a few things in this room, and see what I can make them do._

The first thing that caught his eye was a Rolodex bolted to a desk near one of the doors. He extended his hand toward that, as though the proximity of his hand might have an effect on his ability – or lack thereof – to control the device. And though the shrieking noise returned to antagonize his senses, he made a conscious effort to ignore it and focus all his concentration on that one object; nothing else existed but the Rolodex, and he would watch it this time.

The Rolodex began to flip. One entry... two... five, ten, twenty... faster and faster it spun, until it could have rivaled a helicopter rotor. Correspondingly, his eyes widened at the sight of such a thing. _This is too weird. What else in here am I able to control...?_

He glanced about and noted a monitor mounted over one of the beds. Before he could even think about it, his left hand was already extended toward it and the shriek was resounding in his mind, but he blocked it out once again and kept his attention focused on the monitor, this time unconsciously flexing the muscles in his left arm as if that would make a difference–

The monitor tore away from its moorings and hovered in midair.

"Aah!" He jumped away and let his arm fall; simultaneously, the monitor fell to the floor and the glass shattered, exposing the delicate circuitry inside and creating a horrendous mess on the floor... not to mention a phenomenal din.

_If nobody heard that, it'll be a miracle..._

_... did I make it float?_

He reached his hand out to the casing of the monitor, his curiosity for the moment outweighing his fight-or-flight response to the racket he'd just caused... the whine resounded in his ears...

And the monitor began to rise up off the floor, following the gestures of his hand.

_Whoa..._

He began to manipulate it – imagining the monitor coming towards him, and pulling his left arm backward to simulate a tugging motion... then pushing his arm outward, simultaneously thinking of throwing the monitor away from him.

The monitor crashed against the opposing wall, making yet another loud noise, and sparks leapt from its open face, as did heaps of circuitry.

_So now I've established I can lift and move objects through the air... but what about the weight of those objects?_ He extended his hand toward one of the beds, which was anchored quite firmly to the floor. When the shrieking came upon him, he tried to ignore it, but it simply became louder and louder, and all he could get out of the bed was a futile wriggle. The sensation became unbearable and he abandoned his attempt in favor of remaining conscious. _Anything not nailed down, I suppose..._

He glanced longingly at the door he'd yet to traverse through. _Okay, I've got to grips with my new power... I need to get out of here..._ He stumbled toward the door, and watched his vision swim yet again – though this time much worse than before. He felt himself become nauseous, and he was rapidly losing his footing once more... and this time he fell to his knees right in the doorway. The pain was absolutely unbearable; his side spiked, and so did the static in his head.

"Agh..." he groaned. _It's no use... I don't think I can go on, I... I feel so weak..._

There was no way for him to help himself – his thoughts turned to wishing he were in much better shape than this.

His head began to tingle again. The shrieking returned.

And this time, it resounded throughout his entire body.

"Argh!" He clutched his head, unable to process the sensations he was experiencing. _What's... happening?! Agh...!_

And now he realized this was not the shrieking, but a noise of an entirely different tone. Deeper, spiraling, warbling... it rattled him to the bone, washing over his skin in delicious agony and resonating through his flesh. He collapsed to the cold floor, his body shuddering from the strange attack to which it seemed to have been subjected.

But the wave of nausea was gone. And so was the sharp pain in his side; it had now faded to a dull ache, what he imagined would have eventually happened to it given enough time. He blinked, curious in spite of himself, and pushed up from the floor.

His vision did not swim. His legs actually felt less like jelly now than they had before.

_That's... amazing. I actually feel better..._

_Well... what the hell, let's do it again..._

He sought out the sound again. The shrieking came first, as it had with motion lacking physical contact – _telekinesis_, he thought, _is the word for that_ – but then it faded away, and the resonance took over, again overwhelming him with the jarring sensations that loud noise tended to produce within a body. He had the inspiration this time to glance at the back of his arm as he cautiously welcomed the odd sensation; there was, on that extremity, a long slice that had been painstakingly sutured with perhaps three dozen stitches... but now, as he watched, the skin and flesh were stitching together _themselves_, sealing the wound almost as if it had never existed.

And he realized he could now stand fully upright. The pain in his side was completely gone. His body was still slightly stiff and sore, but beyond that, and the throbbing between his ears, the pain and discomfort had disappeared.

He was amazed. _It worked! That's... much, much better._ He looked up at the door ahead, and was even more amazed; his left eye could now see, albeit with slightly blurred vision – clearly the healing process had a harder time applying to more sensitive injuries. _Time for me to get out of here... whoever I am._

But as the doors ahead hissed open, he could hear voices, and he immediately ducked back from the door, hoping no one had noticed them opening. From what he could see beyond the doorway, he was looking into a hallway that appeared to bear no cameras or surveillance equipment.

_What kind of medical facility is this, that there's so little observation?_

He picked out two voices down the hall; one carried a Brooklyn accent, and the other was fast-paced in his speech, much like a Chicago native. Briefly, he wondered how he knew to identify these accents this way.

"...so they say," the man from Brooklyn was saying. "And he didn't even flinch!"

"No shit?" inquired the Chicagoan. "That wasn't in his notes!"

"Of course it wasn't. Would you have agreed to work this floor if it had been?"

"Me? Yeah, doesn't change a thing. He's safely locked away... and drugged up to the eyeballs, to boot." A scoff. "Might have asked for better pay, though... and a company car."

"Heh. You've forgotten who runs this place."

"So why'd he get dragged halfway across the globe?"

"Well, I dunno for sure. But I kinda have this theory... Apparently he was picked up somewhere near some... I don't know, research... lab... Russian something..."

He frowned. _Russian...?_ Something about that description danced at the fringes of his awareness, but he couldn't quite grasp it – and that frustrated him more than anything since he had awoken.

The Brooklyn native continued. "Now, anyway, I dunno if he was running it, or if he stole something from there..."

"Or _was_ something from there?" interjected the other.

He could almost feel the first man shudder. "Oh, man, that's a freaky thought."

The second persisted. "It's possible, though, right?"

"I guess so... man, Harry, you have properly freaked me out, now!"

The one called Harry became defensive. "Well, hey, I'm sorry! I was just guessing what you were trying to–"

"Yeah, all right, let's talk about something else, okay?"

"Okay, okay! It's just, you do seem a little... edgy."

The first man turned indignant. "Yeah, I'm fine! Let's just change the subject."

"Sure, sure, sorry." The conversation seemed to end there, but just as he was about to cautiously peek around the corner, the man named Harry spoke up again. "It's possible, though, right?

The first man grew huffy. "I don't wanna talk about him anymore! Not with _you_!"

Harry continued, undeterred. "I mean, I knew he was acting weird when he arrived, but I never thought he was–"

"Shut up! Just shut up!"

"Okay, okay!"

_Probably the best chance I'll ever have to get out of here, with the two of them bickering like that_, he thought, and he stole a cautious glance around the corner. Sure enough, the two men – and their garb confirmed his suspicion that they were guards – were standing at the far end of the hallway, to the right, turned away from each other and (mostly) away from his end of the hall. A quick up-and-down inspection of the hallway itself revealed to him a juncture about halfway down, to the right... but more importantly, an elevator just a couple yards away on the other side of the hall.

_An elevator... a way out!_

But his underestimation of the guards' peripheral vision became apparent as he emerged from the isolation ward entrance; the one named Harry – evidently a man in need of a little exercise and a toupée – turned suddenly and let out an exclamation of surprise. "Augh! How'd you get out of your room?!"

He knew he was in big trouble now; the other guard twisted to face him as well, and he knew that he was in no condition to fight these guys hand-to-hand, much less with them armed with nightsticks... which they were just now unholstering. _Great... I'm in for it now. Maybe I can scare them with my telekinesis somehow...?_

His eye caught a fifty-gallon trash can positioned at the end of the hallway, just before the T-intersection they'd been guarding up until about two seconds ago. _Well, beats having nothing at all._ His left hand flashed outward, and even across the distance, the shrieking let him know he'd caught it firmly in his grasp. He rotated his wrist, twisting the trash can sideways and causing a good deal of its contents to fall out – most of it little more than boxes, shredded documentation, and used coffee filters, but enough of a noise to distract the guards for an instant.

He yanked back hard on the can; it responded by rocketing toward the two guards at a dizzying speed. The bottom clattered into the back of Harry's head while the open end clobbered the other across his neck, felling both men at once.

_Well, I'm in it now._ He leapt forward, feeling adrenaline pounding through his system, and he pounced atop Harry before the overweight guard could think to grab for his weapon. He held the guard down to the floor.

"Right! I want some answers!" he declared, his voice crackling. "What the hell is this place?"

But instead of getting an answer out of Harry, what he got was a vicious blow to the back of his head from the other man, who had already recovered and was putting his nightstick to good use. He scrabbled away, trying to hold on to consciousness and keep the hallway from spinning at the same time; he was only partially successful at the latter, but his determination – and adrenaline – permitted him full reign over the former.

As soon as he was oriented, he leapt at the Brooklyn man; he knew close quarters was the only way to make the nightstick ineffective, and he tore into the guard with a flurry of fists. His head was pounding, and the shrieking was forcing his fists to constrict further, and suddenly he couldn't even feel his hands making contact with the man but his opponent was writhing this way and that all the same, as if he were being hit by fists that weren't touching him–

All at once, both of his fists flew outward simultaneously, and though they never touched the guard, he reacted all the same by flying across the hallway... headfirst. The guard's head made brutal contact with the opposing wall, and a sickening **_snap_** reverberated down the expanse.

He was instantly amazed and horrified. _... Oh no... I... I think I killed him... I-I just wanted to get out of here, I didn't need to do that!_

Harry was likewise regarding the scene with a mixture of awe and horror – but the next moment, he was on his feet and bearing his nightstick, ready to take revenge upon the scarred freak who had just killed his partner.

He wasn't going to let himself get torn to pieces by the remaining guard – but neither did he intend to kill his foe, as he had the last. "What have you people been doing to me?!" he cried aloud, and his hand hovered toward the body.

The shrieking pounded through his head once more... and the body rose into the air, as limp as a rag doll.

"What year is it?! _Where are we?!_"

Upon seeing his partner's body in midair, Harry's eyes bugged out so widely they might have exited his skull, and he emitted a shout of pure terror and bolted toward the elevator door.

"That's right, run!" he growled. "Run away!"

He made the guard's body float up the hall, following Harry... and then he dropped it, prostrate, atop the remaining watchman.

"Oh, God!" Harry whimpered, too frightened to throw the body off him.

"You're gonna pay for keeping me here!" He jumped forward again, this time pinning Harry beneath both his own weight and the weight of his dead partner. He wasted no time in his questioning. "Okay, start talking! What the hell is going on? What's my name? What did I do? Why am I being kept here?!"

But Harry seemed not at all inclined to answer – he was far too terrified to do anything but babble incoherently, and he was looking in all directions but in the face of his prey-turned-predator. And then, his eyes rolled back into his head, and he went limp.

_Fainted. Perfect._ He got up and surveyed the area for a moment, amazed that no one had come to respond to the crisis. _There must be hardly anyone on this floor... that, or each section is soundproofed. Which would explain why nobody heard me break the monitor._

_... I have a feeling that I was locked up here for a good reason..._

He clutched his head for a moment; a myriad of familiar noises and almost-familiar faces was passing through his faded memory with all the speed of a subway – nearly recognizable, but gone before he could attain a proper handle on it. His fingertips traced across his scalp, which bore only stubble.

_Didn't I used to have a full head of hair...?_

He looked at the still-breathing Harry's form, and considered. _I should probably put both of these two away somewhere._ A somewhat cruel, but poetically appropriate thought came to his mind. _The isolation cell. It'd provide me with suitable exercise for my powers..._

Within two minutes, he had Harry locked away in the isolation cell, and deprived of his radio. That, he left with the other guard – whose name tag read "F. Stubbs" – atop a bed in the adjacent room, and made sure to turn the volume all the way down. He had no idea if turning it off would alert anyone, but he didn't want to chance it.

That done, he returned to the corridor and approached the elevator. Upon inspection of its controls, he frowned – there was no simple Up or Down button here, but instead a 12-digit keypad. _And probably entering a random code will not only **not** work, but alert someone._ He sighed, and glanced up the hall. _More exploring is in order._

_Just as long as more killing isn't._

He stole into the juncture to the right, which had only one door at the end. When he approached, the door quietly slid open; but a peek beyond the frame revealed someone approaching from the other side. Unlike the guards, this one was not armed or dressed in midnight blue, but instead wore a medical smock – and a bloodied one, at that.

The moment the man spotted him, he jumped. "Aaah! Leave me alone!" And instantly he bolted away from him and cowered in a corner.

_This is preferable to getting whacked over the head..._ He chased after the doctor – he could only assume the man was a doctor who'd yet to change out of old garb – and grabbed him up out of the corner. "What have you people been doing to me?!"

The doctor stammered. "I-I-I don't know anything! Let me go!"

_Not a very likely excuse, but also means he's not going to tell me anything I want to know._ He drove his forehead into the doctor's temple, instantly knocking the man senseless. Vaguely he wondered how he knew how to do that, but brushed the thought off and dragged the doctor into the nearest doorway he could find – in this case, a glassed-off, sunken-floor area labeled Guard Quarters. He hid the doctor's limp body in a corner and was about to leave the room when he noticed a glint on a nearby countertop – light was reflecting off what appeared to be some form of keycard. The words "Surgery Observation" were printed on it.

_This could come in handy._ He picked the card up, belatedly realized he had no pocket in which to put it, then sought out and found a guard belt complete with holsters and mounted pockets. After strapping the belt on, he stole out of the Guard Quarters and spotted an entrance across the hall. He squinted; there was a dent in the door that was somehow... familiar.

_Eh?_

His curiosity piqued, he approached the door. It slid open silently, revealing an otherwise closed-off room with only a chair and a table devoid of any materials one might expect to be there. One wall was glassed off with some sort of reflective surfacing; he guessed it was probably a two-way mirror hiding an observation room beyond.

_Better hope nobody's on the other side..._

There was nothing in the room really worth his notice otherwise, but there was something about the room that nagged at him. _I recognize this room. I think I've been here before._ But he knew lingering here would likely be a mistake, especially as Harry and the doctor were still alive and would awaken soon enough. Though the doctor would probably be so afraid he'd come around the corner and see him that he might just cower in the corner for a while...

He exited the room and rounded the corner, first to the right, then around the adjacent hallway and to the left. The doorway there led toward the T-intersection at the first corridor, making him feel slightly better about his bearings – there was nothing more on that side of the floor he could access. Ahead, on the remaining leg of the intersection, was a doorway that bore a keycard slot to the left. Over the doorway was a sign that read "Surgery Observation".

_Perfect._ He approached and slid the card through the reader; it bleeped, then clicked and the door slid open. Beyond was a short entryway, and beyond that, a slightly darkened room – it appeared to be some sort of laboratory, as evidenced by microscopes and various other analytical devices littering the place, almost shabbily. There were two rows of tables, but only one or two chairs to speak of, and despite all the technical material he was able to set his eyes upon, none of them resembled a computer terminal.

He cautiously moved past the entryway and into the lab... but then he understood why it was called Surgery Observation, as he spotted the glass wall to the left. And there was someone working inside, causing him to duck back behind the very opaque wall of the entryway. Only once he felt he was safe did he realize that this was another doctor – and somehow seemed familiar.

_Everything's so fuzzy... won't come into focus._ He rubbed his head; his fingers brushed past a thick-gauze bandage, which he could only assume hid some sort of hideous injury. As much as he might have wanted to get rid of his bandages and ridiculous getup in exchange for, say, those clothes belonging to the dead guard, he knew that removing the bandages was more likely to prove a hindrance to his progress. _And I can't waste any more time – I need to get out of here, I'll examine myself and find new clothes later._

He stole a cautious peek around the corner and through the glass wall; the doctor inside was seated at a desk distended from the surgical bed and his arms were moving rapidly in jittering motions. He blinked as he realized what the doctor was doing – _he's typing. There's a computer in there... I wonder if it can shed any light on my situation._ He looked for some point of entry to the Operating Room, found it in the form of a door on the wall opposite the doctor's workstation; there was a similar door on the far side of Observation, leading him to wonder if the two might be linked by a hallway.

Moving as stealthily as he could, he slunk across Observation, doing his best to stick to shadows and difficult-to-spot areas. The doctor in the OR seemed totally absorbed in what he was doing, which he thought was only a benefit for him; he made it to the door without a hitch, and snuck through; then he discovered it wasn't a hallway into which he'd stumbled, but merely a storage area. He found himself crouching next to a bank of cryo-stores, each of them bearing – he assumed – various chemicals.

He didn't have to work here to suspect that not all of them were meant for humans.

And he didn't have a hard time believing that some of them had been used on him, regardless.

_Might explain where this power came from... I can't remember much of anything, but... I didn't have this power before... did I?_

The doors to the OR were a little ahead and to the left. _All right, time for some answers._ He moved through them, then swiftly moved up behind the doctor and wrapped one arm about his neck. Roughly, he hoisted the man up to his feet, then snatched his wrist and pressed it firmly between his own shoulder blades, effectively disabling that arm.

_Henricksen... his name is Henricksen..._

The doctor made a choking noise. "S-Stop! You're hurting me!"

_And just what the hell do you think you've been doing to me?_ Those words just barely avoided his tongue; what came out instead was, "I need to speak with whoever's in charge!"

"Wha... wha...?" Henricksen's head turned just enough to see the face of his tormentor; his eyes widened in horror. "Oh, God, oh my God..."

He persisted. "What sort of drugs have you been pumping into me?!"

But it became clear Henricksen wasn't going to answer that question. "H-Help..."

He snarled. _No one's going to answer me! Then I'll have to find the answers myself!_ He released Henricksen's wrist, but almost of its own accord, his right elbow flew up high, then came down hard upon the juncture at the doctor's neck and shoulder. Henricksen's eyes rolled back into his head and he went limp.

_How is it I know all these methods for knocking a man out...? What, was I in the Army or something?_ But he didn't have time to worry about that just now; he dragged Henricksen's body behind the surgical table, out of immediate view, then approached and sat down at the computer desk.

Whatever Henricksen had been working on, he'd filed it away in a place he couldn't access. The only thing he could even locate on this terminal was a map of the floor. He sighed. _I was hoping for patient records. Guess I'm out of luck. But at least this should help me get my bearings..._ He began tracing through the schematics. _I'm in Surgery right now... Chemical Store was what I came through to get here, then Observation... Central Corridor, Guard Quarters, Ward 1 Entrance, Ward 1 with no occupants... Isolation Cell. One occupant, JV-034._ The notation meant nothing to him, but he could only assume that he was JV-034. He paused at the aptly-described Interrogation Room. _That's where I was before. I definitely remember something about an Interrogation Room... but it's so vague._

He stopped again at the schematic of the elevator; a note popped up, informing him of the access code. _Right... the access code is 8461. 8-4-6-1. That should come in useful._ He retreated from the map menu and made one last check of the computer's files; but once again his search gave him no results. _So, nothing there for patient records. Time for me to go._

He got up and made his way out of the OR through the Chemical Store and Observation, then turned right at the T-intersection of the Central Corridor. Some bizarre voice in his head breathed a sigh of relief and expressed thanks that the elevator was exactly where it was supposed to be. He ridiculed that voice as he tapped in the elevator code. _Of course it's exactly where it's supposed to be. I'm not completely insane, you know._

_... Except I don't know that. I did just kill a man, didn't I?_

He heard the elevator hiss to a stop, and glanced up at the illuminated floor markers overhead; this was evidently the sixth floor. The doors opened wide, and though his heart stopped for a moment, there was nobody within – only the shiny, reflective surfaces of a well-polished elevator. It seemed discordant with the rest of the facility.

He stepped inside and considered his destination for a moment. There were only five options available to him, all designated with an appropriate number. _I want to get out of here, and I'll probably run into more people in the process... but the fastest way to get out is just to go to the first floor. Whatever happens when I hit the ground is whatever happens... can't be any worse than what I've already been through, right?_

_Right._

He punched the button for the first floor, then noticed for the first time his reflection in the wall. And finally he understood why everyone else had been so repulsed by him – the left side of his face was a mass of scarring, and his left eye was bloodshot through and through, swollen so badly it almost couldn't open. _No wonder I was having such a hard time with it._ His eyebrows were brown, so he assumed the rest of his hair was the same color. The stubble atop his scalp was only beginning to come into view as even having any color at all, and if there'd been any hair on his torso, it was gone now – _probably_, he imagined, _to the same place my head hair went. And looking at me now, I'll bet even if I could remember anything, still doubtful I'd recognize myself._

The elevator _chunk_ed as it began its descent, causing him to stumble and brace himself against the wall with his right hand. He looked at his arm, then frowned upon sight of the bracelet he found adorning his wrist. He could have brained himself against the wall. _Of course... all medical facilities give you some sort of identification tag..._ He chalked it up to whatever drugs were still coursing through his system, and inspected the band.

_Vattic, Jonathan_

He frowned, the name dancing teasingly just beyond his ability to recall. _That's my name? Jonathan Vattic?_

The shrieking struck him full-force, without preamble. He clutched his head and groaned, unable to understand why – he hadn't tried to incite it to do anything for him...

"_Dr. Vattic – Dr. Vattic – Dr. Vattic – Dr. Vattic – Dr. Vattic..."_

The bass voice wormed its way past the shrieking, echoing again and again between his cranial walls, gaining volume and momentum each time. He groaned again and fell ignominiously on his rear. "What... happened?" he muttered. _I need... I need to remember..._

The shrieking only intensified, and another voice stretched past it – this one bearing no words, only high-pitched, insane laughter. He clenched his eyes shut, but that only seemed to invite his vision to dissolve into a haze of overwhelming blue light...

It felt as if he were being pulled somewhere...

Or maybe it was...

_Some**when**...?_


End file.
